Baker, Miss Nellie, Lummaton, Barton, St Mary Church, Torquay
Nellie Baker was born in 1871 in Oxfordshire, as she recorded on the 1911 census.[1] It has not proved possible so far to discover any other information about her background, and Devon History Society would be pleased to hear from anyone who has further information about her.
Baker appears to have been an early Torquay member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), recorded as contributing financially to the furnishing of their new offices in 1909 and encouraging her friends to do so too.[2] She also made donations to the WSPU and appears to have been comfortably off. She provided assistance, such as persuading a newsagent regularly to display a ‘Votes for Women’ poster, and assisting in events during the ‘Holiday Campaign’ in Torquay held in 1912.[3] She should also probably be identified as the ‘Mrs’ Baker of Torquay who attended the reception given for Mrs Pankhurst by Devon members of the WSPU at the Royal Clarence Hotel, Exeter.[4]
In the 1911 census Nellie was living at Lummaton, Barton, St Mary Church, Torquay. She offered to provide somewhere for women to stay who wished to avoid being registered, as the Registrar noted on the return that ‘5 women seen to leave the house before 8 am on Monday morning April 3rd 1911.’ Nellie did not fill in any of the details and has written on the census, ‘No Vote. No census. Hereby I register my protest against the voteless condition of women [signed] Nellie Baker.’ Under Nellie’s name and in her handwriting it says, ‘Another Woman known to have slept in the home. Information Refused.’ The Registrar also noted for his calculations: ‘Add 4 as one may be No 2 above. Enumerator unable to obtain full particulars.’
At some point Baker became a member of the Women’s Tax Resistance League. On March 27 1913 at Messrs White Chatton and Co’s auction rooms, Torquay, Baker’s goods were sold under a distress warrant, as she had refused to pay inhabited house duty. Following the sale a meeting was held outside the Public Library by the Women’s Tax Resistance League at which Mrs Kineton Parkes from London, secretary of the League, made a speech.[5] The Vote notes that there was ‘a large crowd’.[6] Baker’s refusal to pay tax continued and the following year a brooch and a watch were seized and sold at the same auction rooms. Votes for Women records that: ‘Outside a most successful protest meeting was held; the usual resolution was put and carried unanimously.’[7]
No further information has been found about Baker’s subsequent life.
Entry created by Marilyn Smee, November 2018
[1] Family and census information from www.ancestry.co.uk
[2] Votes For Women, 9 Apr & 14 May 1909.
[3] Votes For Women, 16 Jul 1909; 13 Sep 1912.
[4] Western Times, 29 Oct 1910.
[5] Western Times, 27 Mar 1913.
[6] The Vote, 4 Apr 1913.
[7] Votes For Women, 13 Mar 1914.